Our body, which represents our identity and femininity, changes a lot after giving birth (Photo: ShutterStock)
"In the evening, after the shower, I went to the mirror. Only three years had passed since she used to look at me from there, and a girl with cropped hair and fierce eyes returned. I removed the towel to apply ointment to my wounded and bleeding nipples, and I looked at my tits resting there like a helium balloon that had been forgotten under the couch and long ago The air came out of him, in the stomach whose loose mounds leaned on each other, the depleted hair that hadn't seen a hairdresser in months, the brain that hadn't read a book in more than a year and a half, and now the thirty-year-old woman I had become looked at me with the same eyes, but no storm sprouted from them, only a great and endless sea of fatigue and fatigue".
From: "Eshte Hail", Lehia Lapid, page 83.
This paragraph, in my eyes, symbolizes the pain that many women feel after giving birth, a pain that connects to mourning for who I was, which is also expressed in the appearance of the body.
Our body, which represents our identity and femininity, changes a lot after giving birth, and also symbolizes the change in our lives with the transition to motherhood - a woman who is "
We look different, we feel different, we walk in the world with a body and mind that is sick, tired and sore, the complete opposite of everything we have known about ourselves so far.
The body, as well as the mind, require recovery, strengthening and adaptation.
The body after giving birth requires rehabilitation, not toning, it does not amount to getting into jeans or losing a size.
And this process takes time.
After giving birth, the feeling is of losing control (Photo: ShutterStock)
When you say you want to "get off", what do you mean?
After giving birth, the feeling is of losing control: control over the emotions, the course of life, the routine, the fulfillment of basic needs, the broken fantasy, everything I knew until that moment when I became a mother.
Our automaton in this case will be to look for the place where we still have control, apparently: our body: what we will eat, what we will put in our mouth and what we will not, how we will look, how much and in how long we will lose weight.
But that doesn't always work either, and then we start being violent towards ourselves: "How did I get back"/ "How much did I screw up"/ "Why did I screw up?"
(After all, we would never have imagined that someone would talk to us like that).
The desire to "return to myself" expresses the longing to have our former life back, but there is no way back.
And what does the company say?
The sayings "how beautiful you are back to yourself after giving birth" and less "but how do you really feel?"
encourage and reinforce the message that society sends to women after giving birth that they have no place: they have no place to process their feelings, they have no place to talk about the difficulty publicly and freely, there is no place to show the fatigue, the stretch marks, and hence - that they have no legitimacy to take the time and demand for themselves the The respect they deserve after giving birth.
The feeling is that we need to erase and blur the birthmarks as quickly as possible, get out, get back to work, smile and show that everything is great with us and that we are totally "on it", even if we really, really aren't.
Society dictates our behaviors in many - if not all - areas of life: how to behave, what to wear, how to look, what is considered normal and what is not.
The concept of "choice" is very elusive in this context, because in the end we are social beings who live in society and accept its laws.
It is very difficult to separate our desires, between how we should be, and how we have internalized the way society tells us to be - this is also true for our appearance.
To what extent do we have free choice in the place of how to look?
What price do I pay for this free choice?
If I pay a price - it's not really a choice.
Demand respect, give respect
So we don't get a lot of respect from society and the environment we live in, but we can demand it, and that starts with demanding it from ourselves towards ourselves.
To reduce our violence towards ourselves, to give ourselves the necessary time to recover, the compassion, the love and the admiration we deserve for having performed the miracle of creation.
The invitation is to make physical changes that include healthy weight loss and moderate exercise at the appropriate time, strengthen the body, make it healthy, do good core work and strengthen the shoulder girdle and muscles that carry our baby for many hours of the day, and do it from a place of self-love and compassion, And not from a place of beating and self-hatred.
For most women, the place of the body touches many points on the inside, many times painful points, which are not always fun to touch, and hence the change should also include internal work and not only external work of "what did I eat today".
After birth we redefine ourselves, our identity, our place in the world.
Part of this new self-definition is a redefinition of the limits of our body, of the way it serves us and our baby, the place I occupy in the world, my ability to control it - and what happens to me in general.
The invitation is to do a total process of redefining my identity, which also includes my attitude towards my new body, which naturally changed after giving birth.
The author is an emotional companion for women after giving birth, hosts lectures, workshops and groups for women after giving birth and during the transition to new motherhood.
More in Walla!
A short visit to the pool changed my life - and you can too
Served on behalf of TI SWIM
After giving birth, we redefine ourselves, our identity, our place in the world (Photo: ShutterStock)
The Jama application was established with the aim of responding to mothers of babies between the ages of birth and three, and to gather for them content, activities, tips from experts and videos that will accompany them throughout this challenging period.
All the content in the application "grows" together with the baby and is precisely adapted to the stages of his development, so that the mothers receive only what is relevant to them and interests them at any given moment.
The Jama app is the place for mothers in Israel to meet and get to know other mothers around them, and to create new and exciting friendships in the fascinating journey.
Search us on Google: https://app.jama.co.il/
Vared Garnai, "Habakini - emotional support for women after childbirth", in collaboration with JAMA
health
New parents
Tags
Children
parents